Dominique Strauss-Kahn: Apologies Not Accepted

Two wrongs don't make a right.

I promise I’m not becoming fixated on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the IMF, but watching him apologise through gritted
teeth in his first television interview inspired a sympathy vote for Nafissatou
Diallo, the chambermaid who accused him of raping her in a Manhattan hotel room
last May.

Under disarming interrogation by Claire Chazal, a close
friend of his wife’s, Monsieur Strauss-Kahn maintained the incident in the
Sofitel was “an error” and a “moral failure”. He apologized to his wife, his
children, his friends, and the French people. But where, oh where, was an apology to
Nafissatou Diallo?

Now, I know that Ms Diallo has been declared a liar by US
prosecutors, and the criminal case against DSK has thus been dropped; and I know
there is still a civil case looming, which clearly militates against his making
any incriminating statements. But a glimmer of real regret for the incident as
opposed to bitterness over his thwarted run at the French presidency would have
been nice.

Then again, even if he did not risk jeopardizing his
defence, I doubt Mr Strauss-Kahn would have deigned to mention his alleged victim’s name, let alone admit he may have done her wrong.

In this act of denial he joins a huge club of men and women
who, in the wake of an extra-marital tango, throw the former object of their
passion under the bus. This, to my mind, is almost as morally indefensible as
cheating on your spouse.

Why is it so difficult for the unfaithful to act graciously
towards their one-time partner in ‘crime’? You can still seek redemption for
the pain you have caused your spouse et
al without relegating the ‘other’ to the ranks of the unclean, the unworthy,
and the contemptible.

Your apology to those you have hurt is not enhanced by your
denunciation of your co-conspirator, rather the reverse; it reveals you to be a
hypocrite. Far better, you do your mea
culpas and leave the other person with some shreds of dignity. He or she
can set fire to their reputations all by themselves.

In recent weeks there has been a fleet of sports stars,
actors, and public figures who, having been exposed for their crimes of passion,
profess the affair to be an aberration. Remember Tiger Woods? The extent of Elin’s
betrayal notwithstanding, would he not have gained extra points by publically apologizing
to his lovers for the lies he told them? Might then their outrage not have
resulted in so many salacious revelations.

Some say that Nafissatou Diallo - yes, let’s say her name again - was motivated by greed, therefore she deserves no consideration or compassion
from her alleged attacker. But I have a feeling that she would not have pursued
her case, and certainly not with such conviction, were Mr Strauss-Kahn to have shown
a scintilla of regret in the immediate wake of the encounter.

I realize that by focusing on infidelity I have largely
ignored the matter of rape, which is at the centre of the DSK affair, but this
tendency to compensate for bad behaviour by claiming temporary insanity and
thus relegating the other person to an embarrassing footnote in history
deserves discussion.

I cannot know for sure that Ms. Diallo is a victim of rape,
but she is certainly a victim of Mr Strauss-Kahn’s narcissism and deplorable
indifference, and for this she deserves our sympathy and his apologies.

Penny Thornton's career has taken her from the stage of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden to the deserts of Arizona and along the way she spent time with Princess Diana and worked in the tabloid world of Rupert Murdoch.
Best known as an astrologer - she has columns and clients all over the world…